Bidirectional type checking for declarative data scripting language

ABSTRACT

An efficient, logical and expressive type system supports the combination of refinement types and type membership expressions, as well as a top type that encompasses all valid values as members. A bidirectional type checking algorithm is provided for the type system including synthesis and checking steps to statically verify types of code based on the type system.

TECHNICAL FIELD

The subject disclosure generally relates to testing or verifying the type validity of declarative code based on an expressive, compact and flexible type system for a declarative data scripting language.

BACKGROUND

By way of general background, scripting languages are programming languages that control software systems, applications and programs. Scripts are often treated as distinct from “programs,” which execute independently from other applications. In addition, scripts can be distinct from the “core code” of an application, which may be written in a different language. Scripts can be written by developers or other programs, in source formats or object formats, which range the gamut in terms of human friendly or machine friendly, or neither. Where accessible to the end user, scripts enable the behavior of an application to be adapted to the user's needs. Scripts can also be interpreted from source code or “semi-compiled” to bytecode, or another machine friendly format, which is interpreted. Scripting languages can also be embedded in an application with which they are associated.

For further background, a type system defines how a programming language classifies values and expressions into types, how it can manipulate those types and how they interact. A type identifies a value or set of values as having a particular meaning or purpose, although some types, such as abstract types and function types, might not be represented as values in the executing program. Type systems vary significantly between languages, e.g., among other kinds of differences, type systems can vary with their compile-time syntactic and run-time operational implementations.

For an example of how types can be used, a compiler can use the static type of a value to optimize storage and the choice of algorithms for operations on the value. In many C compilers, for example, the nominally typed “float” data type is represented in 32 bits in accordance with an accepted norm for single-precision floating point numbers. C thus uses floating-point-specific operations on those values, e.g., floating-point addition, multiplication, etc. In addition, the depth of type constraints and the manner of their evaluation can have an effect on the typing of the language.

An efficient, logical and expressive type system is desirable to keep a language compact, but also highly expressive and logical so that efficient and structurally compact data intensive applications can be generated along with efficient storage representations. However, type systems of conventional programming languages are not general enough or flexible enough for the complexities of massive scale data processing and consumption. In short, any complexity or lack of flexibility of a type system and associated inefficiency can magnify exponentially or out of proportion when large amounts of data are implicated. For the same reasons, the type checking processes that determine whether or not types have been validly specified in programming code have the same limitations of the type systems to which they apply.

In this regard, the ability to express types richly and efficiently, given the diversity of data values in the computing universe, can significantly improve the resulting performance of data intensive applications and programs. A need thus remains for a programming language with an improved type system, along with a way to check that types of the programming language are valid prior to execution with errors. Accordingly, algorithms are desired for type-checking programs in a data scripting language with an expressive type system.

The above-described background information and deficiencies of current type systems and corresponding type checking of programming languages are merely intended to provide a general overview of some of the background information and problems of conventional systems, and are not intended to be exhaustive. Other problems with conventional systems and corresponding benefits of the various non-limiting embodiments described herein may become further apparent upon review of the following description.

SUMMARY

A simplified summary is provided herein to help enable a basic or general understanding of various aspects of exemplary, non-limiting embodiments that follow in the more detailed description and the accompanying drawings. This summary is not intended, however, as an extensive or exhaustive overview. Instead, the sole purpose of this summary is to present some concepts related to some exemplary non-limiting embodiments in a simplified form as a prelude to the more detailed description of the various embodiments that follow.

Various embodiments provide type-checking of programs in a data scripting language with an expressive constraint-based type system. In one non-limiting aspect, the type system of a declarative programming language includes support for type checking expressions in refinement type definitions. In another non-limiting aspect, the type system can include support for a top type, which is the least constrained type that encompasses all valid types. In various embodiments, a bidirectional type checking algorithm synthesizes and checks types of expressions of declarative programs, enabling the declarative programs of the rich type system to be statically verified.

These and other embodiments are described in more detail below.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Various non-limiting embodiments are further described with reference to the accompanying drawings in which:

FIG. 1 is a general block diagram illustrating a synthesis step for synthesizing a type;

FIG. 2 is a general block diagram illustrating a type checking step for checking that an expression can be checked against a type in a given context;

FIG. 3 is a block diagram of a bidirectional checking algorithm according to various embodiments;

FIG. 4 is a flow diagram of a bidirectional checking process according to various embodiments;

FIG. 5 is a block diagram of a declarative code interpretation module according to various embodiments;

FIG. 6 is another flow diagram of a bidirectional checking process according to various embodiments;

FIG. 7 is a block diagram of a compiling process chain for a declarative programming language and related structures;

FIG. 8 is a first block diagram illustrating exemplary aspects of a type system in one or more embodiments described herein;

FIG. 9 is second block diagram illustrating exemplary aspects of a type system in one or more embodiments described herein;

FIG. 10 is third block diagram illustrating exemplary aspects of a type system in one or more embodiments described herein;

FIG. 11 is a block diagram illustrating a type system capable of intersections of two or more types;

FIG. 12 is a block diagram illustrating a type system capable of joining, or performing a union operation of, two or more types;

FIG. 13 is a block diagram illustrating a type system having a top type whose meaning is the complement of the meaning of an empty type;

FIG. 14 is a flow diagram illustrating a process for defining declarative code according to a declarative programming model comprising a type system supporting type refinement and type membership in accordance with an embodiment;

FIG. 15 is a block diagram of a computing system for executing declarative code according to a declarative programming model having a sophisticated type system according to an embodiment;

FIG. 16 is a flow diagram illustrating a process for executing declarative code by at least one processor of a computing device according to an embodiment;

FIG. 17 is an exemplary process chain for a declarative model packaged by an embodiment;

FIG. 18 is an illustration of a type system associated with a record-oriented execution model;

FIG. 19 is a non-limiting illustration of a type system associated with a constraint-based execution model according to an embodiment;

FIG. 20 is an illustration of data storage according to an ordered execution model;

FIG. 21 is a non-limiting illustration of data storage according to an order-independent execution model;

FIG. 22 is a block diagram representing exemplary non-limiting networked environments in which various embodiments described herein can be implemented; and

FIG. 23 is a block diagram representing an exemplary non-limiting computing system or operating environment in which one or more aspects of various embodiments described herein can be implemented.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION Overview

As discussed in the background, among other things, conventional type systems have certain complexities and inflexibilities that limit the expressiveness of the resulting programs and limit the efficiency of resulting storage structures and algorithmic processing. Such deficiencies of conventional systems are especially felt when carried out on a large scale, such as in connection with large scale data storage and processing systems. In addition, when interacting with real world data by programs on a data intensive basis, making sure that the types specified in the programs are valid, and thus will match the target data stores, or certain subsets or columns of a data store without generating errors is beneficial. As a result, e.g., programs having errors can be stopped before they disrupt the computing ecosystem in which they operate.

In this regard, “D”, a programming language developed by Microsoft, is well suited to authoring data intensive programs. The D programming language, more details about which can be found below, is a declarative programming language that is well suited to compact and human understandable representation and advantageously includes efficient constructs for creating and modifying data intensive applications, independent of an underlying storage mechanism, whether flash storage, a relational database, RAM, external drive, network drive, etc. “D” is also sometimes called the “M” programming language, although for consistency, references to M are not used herein.

In various non-limiting embodiments described herein, on top of such an expressive type system a “bidirectional” algorithm for synthesizing and checking types of expressions in D is provided for ensuring valid typing of code. In one non-limiting aspect, the type system supports the combination of refinement types and type membership expressions. The type system can also include a top type that encompasses all valid values as members. In this regard, the typing system of D supports a combination of unique features enabling a synergy of language expressiveness including, but not limited to, the capability of expressing the union and/or intersection of two or more distinct types of a program.

Thus, D includes an efficient and compact syntax for generating declarative source code, including a type system for a data scripting language having capabilities that empower the use of the language, e.g., for data intensive applications. More specifically, the type system and corresponding type checking as described herein allows data intensive applications to be statically verified using an expressive type system.

In one embodiment, a type system supports the combination of a “top” type (written Any in D), a refinement type (where a type can be qualified by an arbitrary Boolean expression) and the inclusion of a typecase expression in the refinement expression language. Based on such type system, a bidirectional type checking algorithm verifies the types of actual code, source code or intermediate representations, are valid prior to executing the code.

For the avoidance of doubt, the D programming language is provided as the context for various embodiments set forth herein with respect to the above-mentioned type system and corresponding type checking for a declarative programming model and language. However, it can be appreciated that the various embodiments described herein can be applied to any declarative programming languages having the same or similar capabilities of D with respect to its programming constructs, type system and other defining characteristics.

Thus, for instance, any declarative language including a type system supporting typecasing or type membership expressions in refinement types as set forth in one or more embodiments is contemplated herein, not just embodiments predicated on the D programming language. Moreover, while D is a suitable source of exemplary pseudo-code and conceptual illustration as found herein, such examples are to be considered representative of concepts, and not limited by any particularities of D.

In various embodiments, an efficient, logical and expressive type system and type checking algorithm are provided for flexibly defining and verifying types of a declarative programming language so that efficient and structurally compact data intensive applications can be generated. In one non-limiting aspect, the type system supports the combination of refinement types and type membership expressions. Combined with a top type that encompasses all valid values as members, among other non-limiting aspects, types can be efficiently represented for a full range of types of data as may be found in semi-random or large scale collections of real world data.

On top of the type system, an algorithm is provided that first synthesizes a type for a D program expression under consideration, i.e., the synthesis step attempts to type the expression with a type T named in the D program expression. If the type check analysis determines that type T can be assigned to the expression, then the output of the synthesis step is type T. If the type check analysis determines that type T is invalid for the expression, then the output of the synthesis step is an error. The synthesis step represents a first conceptual direction because it attempts to assign a type T to the expression.

In the other conceptual direction, the algorithm checks whether the expression checks against a type, e.g., determines whether the expression as evaluated has the type. The two steps are referred to as bi-directional because they are mutually dependent in that the synthesized type of the synthesis step must meet the conditions of the type checking step. In this fashion, the algorithm works as a gatekeeper to keep the typing of expressions in declarative programs, such as D programs, valid prior to execution.

Bidirectional Type Validation for Data Scripting Language

As discussed above, conventional type systems of programming languages have not enabled type checking expressions in refinement type statements as part of the associated type system. Accordingly, for such a system, various embodiments type check types found in programs constructed according the type system of the D programming language, or similar type system, which supports rich and expressive features. In various embodiments, a bidirectional algorithm for synthesizing and checking types in a data scripting language is provided.

With a bidirectional type system, terms are divided into synthesis terms, for which types may be determined “synthetically;” and analysis terms, which may be verified “analytically” to have particular types. In this regard, a compiler or other interpreter of a D program will receive a programming construct having an expression with a type, e.g., e:T, which in effect expresses that some expression e has a type T.

To type check the programming construct, first a type T is synthesized according to a synthesis step. According to type system rules, the synthesis step attempts to assign a type T to the expression, returning type T if synthesis is successful and an error if unsuccessful. The synthesis step presumes that it can checked whether the expression e as evaluated in fact has type T. The presumption is fulfilled by the second step, type checking, which is given the expression and the type, and through a step of logical and mathematical transformations based on rules dictated by the type system, reduces the expression to a simple true or false output, namely whether the type checks out or not.

FIG. 1 is a general block diagram illustrating the synthesis step for synthesizing a type. A D program expression 100 or statement such as (e in T), is received as part of verifying the validity of a D program. As discussed, in a first step, a synthesis 110 is applied based on the underlying D type system rules and judgments 120, which either results in outputting the synthesized type T 130, or noting an error 140 if the type cannot be synthesized. In the case of an error, there are a variety of ways to error handle 150.

FIG. 2 is a general block diagram illustrating a type checking step for checking that an expression can be checked against a type in a given context. As mentioned, a type cannot be synthesized for an expression unless the expression can be checked against the type in a given context. FIG. 2 represents the determination that the expression can be checked. The typecheck analysis 220, again based on the underlying D type system rules and judgments 230, received an expression 200 and a type 210, and for a given context, the typecheck analysis 220 returns true 240 if the expression can be assigned type T, and false 250 if the expression cannot be assigned type T. This result is processed by the synthesis step as the synthesis step is dependent on the result.

FIG. 3 illustrates this dependency based on the bidirectional type system 300 including support for typecase expressions in refinement types. In this regard, to synthesize 310, a question must be asked which is answered by the checking 320 of whether the expression can be checked against the type in the given context. Thus, a question/answer cycle is introduced as part of the bidirectional type system.

More formally, the D programming language is a typed language, meaning that the range of values that its variables can assume are bounded. An upper bound of such a range is called a type. A type system is a component of a typed language that keeps track of the types of variables and, in general, of the types of all expressions in a program. The implementation of a type system for “D” is the focus of this disclosure.

A type system can be described mathematically using a collection of judgments. The primary judgment form of a type system is a typing judgment which asserts that an expression e has type T in context Γ, i.e., the free variables of e are defined in Γ, which can be written as follows:

δ├e:T

The assertion e:T, i.e., the assertion that expression e has type T, is a relation. In other words, a given expression may have many types.

To determine whether an expression has a type, the typing judgment for the D type system is split into two mutually dependent judgments according to a bidirectional system: one judgment that synthesizes a type from an expression, and another judgment that checks an expression against a type. The two judgment forms are both deterministic, e.g., at most one type can be synthesized for a given expression, and syntax-directed, e.g., the judgment forms describe directly an implementation strategy.

The two judgment forms are written as follows:

Γ├e→T means that in context Γ, the expression e synthesizes a type T (synthesis)

Γ├e←T means that in context Γ, the expression e can be checked against type T (checking)

More concretely, the first judgment form is a function whose input is a context and an expression and returns either a type or fails. The second judgment form is a function whose inputs are a context, an expression and a type and returns either true or false.

The judgment forms are mutually dependent. For example, one rule for synthesizing a type for an expression that has a type ascription (see below re: type synthesis of D expressions) is as follows:

$\frac{\Gamma \vdash \left. e\leftarrow T \right.}{{\Gamma \vdash \left( {e:T} \right)}->T}$

In other words, an expression e:T synthesizes a type T in context Γ, if the expression can be checked against type T in the context Γ. The rules defining both judgment forms for a core subset of “D” are now given in more detail below mathematical description of the judgment forms for a core fragment of “D” expressions.

As a predicate, first Table I below sets forth some basic D Syntax of Values and Expressions, and then Table II sets forth the syntax for D types according to the D type system.

TABLE I Syntax of Values and Expressions Syntax Use x variable l field i integer s string c literals (Booleans, integers, strings) ⊕ operator (+, −, <, ==, !, &&, ||, Count) v ::= value c literal {v₁, . . . ,v_(n)} collection (unordered) {l_(i) = v_(i) ^(iε1 . . . n)} entity (unordered, l_(i) distinct) e ::= expression x variable c literal null null ⊕(e₁, . . . ,e_(n)) operator application e₁?e₂ : e₃ conditional let x = e₁ in e₂ let-expression e in T typecase e : T type annotation {l_(i) = e_(i) ^(iε1..n)} entity el field selection { } empty collection {e} unit collection e₁ + e₂ collection union bind x ← e₁ in e₂ bind-expression

TABLE II Syntax of Types Syntax of Types: S,T,U ::= Type X type variable (with definition type X = T) Any the top type Integer Integer Text String Logical truth values T* collection type {l : T} (single) entity type {x : T | e} refinement type

The following represents the syntax of typing environments:

E::=x₁:T₁, . . . ,x_(n):T_(n) (ordered) environment

Ø can be written for the empty environment

dom(x₁:T₁, . . . ,x_(n):T_(n))={x₁, . . . ,x_(n)}

The three main judgments of the D type system, providing the foundation for the bidirectional algorithm described herein, are as in Table III below.

TABLE III Judgments of the Type System Judgments of the Type System: E ├

environment E is wellformed Γ ├ e → T in E, expression e synthesizes type T Γ ├ e ← T in E, expression e checks against type T

In this regard, it is assumed that expressions are type checked in the context of a set of type definitions of the following form.

type X T

The body of each definition may mention any of the defined type names, and may be recursive. A global map, typedef, is assumed that maps type names to types. For example, given the above definition, then typedef(X)=T.

As mentioned, the relations Γ├e→T and Γ├e←T represent the bidirectional type system. The rules for Γ├e→T amount to an algorithm that can be informally read “in context E the expression e synthesis the type T”. The rules for Γ├e←T amount to an algorithm that can be informally read “in context E, the e can be type checked at type T”.

With respect to the rules of the type system, a first judgment is that environments are wellformed, as follows:

(Env  Empty) $\frac{\;}{E \vdash ♦}$ (Env  Item) $\frac{E \vdash {{♦\mspace{14mu} x} \notin {{{dom}(E)}\mspace{14mu} {{fv}(T)}} \subseteq {{dom}(E)}}}{E,{x:{T \vdash ♦}}}$

Other functions that are assumed include:

1. E├S<:T is a subtyping judgment that asserts that type S is a subtype of T. Any algorithm that soundly approximates this relation can be used.

2. T.l

S takes a D entity type T and returns S the type of the field l. Any algorithm that soundly approximates this function can be used.

3. T.Items

S takes a D collection type T and returns S, the type of the items. Again, any algorithm that soundly approximates this function can be used.

4. S+T

U takes two D collection types S and T and returns the type U representing the union of the two collection types. Any algorithm that soundly approximates this function can be used.

The following are the type system rules for type synthesis of expressions, the second judgment form:

(Synth  Var) $\frac{E,{x:T},{E^{\prime} \vdash ♦}}{E,{x:T},{{E^{\prime} \vdash x}->T}}$ (Synth  Logical  1) $\frac{E \vdash ♦}{{E \vdash {true}}->\lbrack{true}\rbrack}$ (Synth  Logical  2) $\frac{E \vdash ♦}{{E \vdash {false}}->\lbrack{false}\rbrack}$ (Synth  Integer) $\frac{E \vdash ♦}{{E \vdash i}->\lbrack i\rbrack}$ (Synth  Text) $\frac{E \vdash ♦}{{E \vdash s}->\lbrack s\rbrack}$ (Synth  Null) $\frac{E \vdash ♦}{{E \vdash {null}}->\lbrack{null}\rbrack}$ (Synth  Cond) $\frac{\begin{matrix} {E \vdash \left. {e\; 1}\leftarrow{Logical} \right.} \\ {E,{{{{- \text{:}}\mspace{11mu} \left\{ {x\text{:}\mspace{11mu} {Any}} \middle| {e\; 1} \right\}} \vdash {e\; 2}}->S}} \\ {E,{{{{- \text{:}}\mspace{11mu} \left\{ {x\text{:}\mspace{11mu} {Any}} \middle| {e\; 1} \right\}} \vdash {e\; 3}}->T}} \end{matrix}}{{E \vdash {e\; {1?e}\; 2\text{:}\mspace{11mu} e\; 3}}->\left. S \middle| T \right.}$

In the rule above the synthesized type S|T denotes the union of the types S and T. The algorithm may implement optimisations at this point to return a more precise type. For example if S and T are both the type Integer, then the algorithm may return simply Integer.

(Synth  Let) $\frac{\begin{matrix} {{E \vdash {e\; 1}}->T} \\ {E,{{x:{T \vdash {e\; 2}}}->U}} \end{matrix}}{{E \vdash {{let}\mspace{14mu} x}} = {{e\; 1\mspace{14mu} {in}\mspace{14mu} e\; 2}->{U\left\{ {e\; {1/x}} \right\}}}}$ (Synth  In) $\frac{E \vdash \left. {e\; 1}\leftarrow T \right.}{{E \vdash {e\; 1\mspace{14mu} {in}\mspace{14mu} T}}->{Logical}}$ (Synth  Annot) $\frac{{E \vdash e}->S}{{E \vdash {e\text{:}\mspace{11mu} T}}->T}$

The rule (Synth Annot) may either check that there is a subtype relationship between the synthesized type S and ascribed type T (in either direction), or insert a runtime type test to check that the expression e does conform to type T, or both.

(Synth  Entity) $\frac{{E \vdash {e\; 1}}->{{{T\; 1\mspace{11mu} \ldots \mspace{11mu} E} \vdash {en}}->{Tn}}}{{{{{{E \vdash \left\{ {{{l\; 1} = {e\; 1}},\ldots \;,{{l\; n} = {en}}} \right\}}->\left\{ {l\; 1\text{:}T\; 1} \right\}}\&}\mspace{11mu} \ldots}\&}\mspace{11mu} \left\{ {l\; n\text{:}{Tn}} \right\}}$ (Synth  Dot) $\frac{{E \vdash e}->{T\mspace{14mu} {T \cdot l}\mspace{11mu} U}}{{E \vdash {e \cdot l}}->U}$ (Synth  Unit) $\frac{{E \vdash e}->T}{{E \vdash \left\{ e \right\}}->T^{*}}$ (Synth  Zero) $\frac{\;}{{{E \vdash {\{\}}}->\left\lbrack {\{\}} \right\rbrack}\;}$ (Synth  Bind) $\frac{\begin{matrix} {{E \vdash {e\; 1}}->S} \\ {{S \cdot {Items}}\mspace{11mu} T} \\ {E,{{{x\text{:}T} \vdash {e\; 2}}->U}} \\ {E \vdash {U < {\text{:}\mspace{11mu} {Any}^{*}}}} \\ {x \notin {{fv}(U)}} \end{matrix}}{{E \vdash \left. {{bind}\mspace{14mu} x}\leftarrow{e\; 1\mspace{14mu} {in}\mspace{14mu} e\; 2} \right.}->U}$ (Synth  Plus) $\frac{\begin{matrix} {{E \vdash {e\; 1}}->S} \\ {{E \vdash {e\; 2}}->T} \\ {S + {T\mspace{11mu} \mspace{11mu} U}} \end{matrix}}{{E \vdash {{e\; 1} + {e\; 2}}}->U}$

With respect to the type checking rules set forth below, the main rule is for type checking against a refinement type. The rule for type checking refinement types, along with those for checking the Any (top) type and a type variable, are as follows:

(Check  Refinement) $\frac{\begin{matrix} {E \vdash \left. {e\; 1}\leftarrow T \right.} \\ {E,{{x\text{:}T} \vdash \left. {e\; 2}\leftarrow{Logical} \right.}} \\ {{check\_ is}{\_ true}\left( {E,{e\; {2\left\lbrack {e\; {1/x}} \right\rbrack}}} \right)} \end{matrix}}{E \vdash \left. {e\; 1}\leftarrow\left\{ {x\text{:}T} \middle| {e\; 2} \right\} \right.}$

In the rule (Check Refinement) above we have assumed some auxiliary routine check_is_true to determine whether the expression e2 with instances of the variable x replaced by e1 is logically true. This check may be attempted as part of the type checking processing or at runtime (by inserting the check into the expression) or both.

(Check  Any) $\frac{E \vdash \left. e\leftarrow T \right.}{E \vdash \left. e\leftarrow{Any} \right.}$ (Check  Type  Var) $\frac{\begin{matrix} {E \vdash \left. e\leftarrow T \right.} \\ {{{typedef}(X)} = T} \end{matrix}}{E \vdash \left. e\leftarrow X \right.}$

The rest of the type checking rules are as follows. It is noted that the three rules above (Check Refinement, Check Any, and Check TypeVar) take precedence over any of the following rules.

(Check  Var) $\frac{{〚E〛}\text{|}{\text{⊢}〚U〛}x}{E \vdash \left. x\leftarrow U \right.}$ (Check  Logical  1) $\frac{E \vdash ♦}{E \vdash \left. {true}\leftarrow{Logical} \right.}$ (Check  Logical  2) $\frac{E \vdash ♦}{E \vdash \left. {false}\leftarrow{Logical} \right.}$ (Check  Integer) $\frac{E \vdash ♦}{E \vdash \left. i\leftarrow{Integer} \right.}$ (Check  Text) $\frac{E \vdash ♦}{E \vdash \left. s\leftarrow{Text} \right.}$ (Check  Cond) $\frac{\begin{matrix} {E \vdash \left. {e\; 1}\leftarrow{Logical} \right.} \\ {E,{{{- \text{:}}\mspace{11mu} \left\{ {x\text{:}\mspace{11mu} {Any}} \middle| {e\; 1} \right\}} \vdash \left. {e\; 2}\leftarrow S \right.}} \\ {E,{{{- \text{:}}\mspace{11mu} \left\{ {x\text{:}\mspace{11mu} {Any}} \middle| {e\; 1} \right\}} \vdash \left. {e\; 3}\leftarrow S \right.}} \end{matrix}}{E \vdash \left. {e\; {1?e}\; 2\text{:}\mspace{11mu} e\; 3}\leftarrow S \right.}$ (Check  Let) $\frac{\begin{matrix} {{E \vdash {e\; 1}}->T} \\ {E,{{x\text{:}\mspace{11mu} T} \vdash \left. {e\; 2}\leftarrow U \right.}} \end{matrix}}{{E \vdash {{let}\mspace{14mu} x}} = \left. {e\; 1\mspace{14mu} {in}\mspace{14mu} e\; 2}\leftarrow U \right.}$ (Check  In) $\frac{\begin{matrix} {{E \vdash {e\; 1}}->S} \\ {E \vdash {{Logical} < {\text{:}\; U}}} \end{matrix}}{{E \vdash {e\; 1\mspace{14mu} {in}\mspace{14mu} T}}->U}$ (Check  Annot) $\frac{\begin{matrix} {{E \vdash e}->S} \\ {E \vdash {T < {\text{:}U}}} \end{matrix}}{E \vdash \left. {e\text{:}\mspace{11mu} T}\leftarrow U \right.}$

The rule (Check Annot) may either check that there is a subtype relationship between the synthesized type S and ascribed type T (or either direction), or insert a runtime type test to check that the expression e does conform to type T, or both.

(Check  Entity) $\frac{\begin{matrix} {E \vdash \left. {ej}\leftarrow{Tj} \right.} \\ {1 \leq j \leq n} \end{matrix}}{E \vdash \left. \left\{ {{{l\; 1} = {e\; 1}},\ldots \;,{{l\; n} = {en}}} \right\}\leftarrow\left\{ {{lj}\text{:}{Tj}} \right\} \right.}$ (Check  Dot) $\frac{E \vdash \left. e\leftarrow\left\{ {l\text{:}\; U} \right\} \right.}{E \vdash \left. {e \cdot l}\leftarrow U \right.}$ (Check  Unit) $\frac{E \vdash \left. e\leftarrow T \right.}{E \vdash \left. \left\{ e \right\}\leftarrow T^{*} \right.}$ (Check  Zero) $\frac{\;}{E \vdash \left. {\{\}}\leftarrow T^{*} \right.}$ (Check  Bind) $\frac{\begin{matrix} {{E \vdash {e\; 1}}->S} \\ {{S \cdot {Items}}\; \; T} \\ {E,{{x\text{:}T} \vdash \left. {e\; 2}\leftarrow U \right.}} \\ {E \vdash {U\text{<:}\mspace{11mu} {Any}^{*}}} \end{matrix}}{E \vdash \left. {{bind}\mspace{14mu} x}\leftarrow{e\; 1\mspace{14mu} {in}\mspace{14mu} e\; 2}\leftarrow U \right.}$ (Check  Plus) $\frac{\begin{matrix} {E \vdash \left. {e\; 1}\leftarrow T \right.} \\ {E \vdash \left. {e\; 2}\leftarrow T \right.} \\ {E \vdash {T\text{<:}\mspace{11mu} {Any}^{*}}} \end{matrix}}{E \vdash \left. {{e\; 1} + {e\; 2}}\leftarrow 1 \right.}$

More concretely, the rules given above defining the bidirectional type system can be read as defining two routines: CHECK and SYNTHESIZE, as follows.

The checking relation Γ├e←T can be thought of as a routine CHECK that takes three arguments: Γ (a set of variables with their types), an expression under consideration e, and a type T. The routine CHECK then returns either true or false, indicating whether the expression e can be assigned the type T or not, respectively.

The synthesis relation Γ├e∴T, in turn, can be thought of as a routine SYNTHESIZE that takes two arguments, Γ (a set of variables with their types), and an expression under consideration e. The routine SYNTHESIZE then returns either a type T, indicating that the expression e has the type T or it returns an error value, indicating that a type cannot be synthesized.

The rules given for these two relations set forth in detail above can be read from the bottom-up as defining a case for the routine. For an example, consider the rule (Synth In) from the synthesis rules given above. This can be translated directly into the following case for the SYNTHESIZE routine:

SYNTHESIZE(Gamma, input-expression) = ... If input-expression is of the form “e in T” then call SYNTHESIZE(Gamma, e);  if this call returns ERROR then return ERROR  otherwise return the type LOGICAL

On the type checking step side, consider the rule (Check In) from checking rules given above. This can be translated directly into the following case for the CHECK routine:

CHECK(Gamma, input-expression, U) = ... If e is of the form “e in T” then call SYNTHESIZE(Gamma, e);  if this call returns ERROR then return ERROR  otherwise check that LOGICAL is a subtype of the input type U;  if a valid subtype, return TRUE otherwise return FALSE

The other rules can be converted into pseudo-code in a similar manner.

FIG. 4 is a flow diagram of a bidirectional checking process according to various embodiments. At 400, programming constructs are received of a declarative program generated according to a type system supporting refinement types combined with type membership evaluation. At 410, an attempt is made to synthesize a type for an expression of the declarative program. However, as shown at 420, synthesis is dependent on whether the expression can be checked against the type in the given context. In this regard, at 430, an error is generated if the expression cannot be checked against the type in the given context, otherwise the type is synthesized.

FIG. 5 is a block diagram of a declarative code interpretation module according to various embodiments. FIG. 5 is a system including the ability to receive from storage, from another application, from another system, stored locally, remote or distributed, various programming constructs that represent declarative code 500. One typical use of code 500 when received is to execute the code. In this regard, an interpretation module 510 that understands the constructs 500 and its corresponding type system performs a verification that the programming constructs 500 are valid. As mentioned in connection with the block diagram of FIG. 3, this is achieved according to a two way process including synthesis 520 and determining that the expression can actually be checked against the type based on the rules of the type system. The goal is thus to determine the validity of some representation of the programming constructs of code 500.

FIG. 6 is another flow diagram of a bidirectional checking process according to various embodiments. At 600, a declarative program is received according to a typing system that supports typing by refinement and evaluation of type membership. At 610, the validity of expressions represented in the declarative program is tested. This includes synthesizing a type for an expression in a given context if the expression can be checked against the type in the given context. At 620, it is actually determine if the expression can be checked against the type in the given context according to rules of the typing system, and if so, the type is synthesized. If there are no synthesis errors, the declarative code is executed at 630.

Supplemental Context for Type System

For additional understanding, supplemental context regarding the embodiments for a type system of a data scripting language is set forth below, but first some background is presented with reference to FIG. 7 regarding different ways that D programs can be represented and used according to a D compilation chain. For instance, source code 700 can be authored directly by developers, or machines. Source code 700 can be compiled by a D compiler 710 including, for instance, a D parser 720 for parsing source code 700 and a D Syntax Tree component 730 for forming D Syntax Trees, which can then be analyzed and transformed to D Graph structures 740.

D Graph structures 740 can be generated by developers directly, and also by applications, and represented in a compact manner. D Graph structures 740 can be unwound to trees 730 and back to source code 700, and D Graph structures 740 can be compiled or semi-compiled to object code in connection with data intensive applications according to various domain specific uses 750, such as SQL database queries, enterprise data management (EDM), spreadsheet applications, graphics applications, i.e., anywhere that data can be stored and analyzed.

A typed language, such as the D programming language, refers to the notion that the range of values the variables of the language can assume are bounded. An upper bound of such a range is called a type. A type system is a component of a typed language that keeps track of the types of variables and, in general, of the types of all expressions in a program. The types that can be specified and checked in “D” have not been enabled by conventional systems, and such types are described in more detail below.

As mentioned, in one aspect, a type system for a data scripting language is provided that combines refinement types and typecase expressions in the refinement language enabling to enable a simple yet rich type language. In one embodiment, a top type is supported which in combination with refinement types and a typecase expression in the refinement language yields further expressivity to the type language. Using this expressive type system, data intensive applications can be statically verified.

As shown in the block diagram of FIG. 8, in one embodiment, a declarative programming language, such as the D programming language, includes a variety of programming constructs 800 that form part of a program. Systems, applications, services can specify such constructs 800 or execute them as D programs against data store(s) 860 to achieve data intensive results. In one non-limiting aspect, a type system 850 of the programming model underlying the programming constructs 800 includes support for the combination of refinement types 810 and type membership evaluation 820, also known as typecase, within an expression of a refinement type 810. In this regard, the combination of refinement types and support for type membership evaluation within the refinement type expression is not supported by conventional systems.

As shown in the block diagram of FIG. 9, in addition to the capabilities of type system 250, a type system 950 can also include a top type encompassing all valid values 930. In other words, the top type is the least constrained type of any type found in a programming model having the top type. As shown in the block diagram of FIG. 10, optionally, in addition to the other capabilities, a type system 1050 can further include support for values as types 1020, and also types as values 1010.

Types in “D” include typical primitive types such as Integer, Text, and Logical, along with collection types, written T* (meaning a collection of values of type T), and entity, or record types, written {l1:T1, . . . ,ln:Tn} (meaning an entity with fields l1, . . . ,ln of types T1, . . . ,Tn, respectively).

In one implementation of the above-described type systems for a data scripting language, a type system supports a “top” type, written Any. All valid D values are values of this “least constrained” type. In addition, refinement types are supported, which can be written {value:T|e} where value is an identifier, T is a type and e is a Boolean-valued expression, e.g., “D” syntax for a refinement type is simply “T where e”. The values of such a type are the valid “D” values of type T for which the Boolean expression e is equivalent to true.

For example, the value 42 is a member of the type {x: Integer|x>41}, as the value 42 is of type Integer and it satisfies the test x>41 since 42 is indeed greater than 41. For further example, the value 43 is a member of this type as well, but 40 is not. In addition, the type system supports Boolean-valued expressions in refinements. Boolean expression forms of “and”, “or”, “not”, “implies” are supported, and in addition, the type system includes a type membership test, or typecase, expression written “e in T”. The operational behavior of the typecase expression is to evaluate the expression e and determine whether the resulting value is in the set of values of type T.

In this regard, combining the above features of a type system yields some powerful and elegant expressions for defining types. For example, FIG. 11 illustrates a first non-limiting benefit, which is that a type 1120 can be defined in a single compact expression that is the intersection of a first type 1100 and a second type 1110, both defined by constraint-based or structural typing. The intersection type of types S and T can be expressed as follows:

{x: Any|x in T && x in S}

FIG. 12 illustrates another non-limiting benefit, namely that a type 1220 can be defined in a single compact expression that is the union of a first type 1200 and a second type 1210, both defined by constraint-based or structural typing. The union type of types S and T can be expressed as follows:

{x: Any|x in T∥x in S}

Another non-limiting benefit of a type system with a top type, or top level type, is that the empty type can also be expressed as shown in FIG. 13. By negating the top type “Any”, a null type 1320 can be expressed which is the set of no valid types. In D, the null type can be expressed as follows:

{x: Any|false}

For further understanding, a type system can be described mathematically using a collection of judgments. A judgment is of the following form

Γ├

where

is some assertion, the free variables of which are declared in Γ. The context Γ is an ordered list of distinct variables and their types of the form Ø, x1:T1, . . . , xn:Tn. (The empty context Ø is sometimes dropped.)

The primary judgment form of a type system is a typing judgment which asserts that an expression e has type T in context Γ, e.g., the free variables of e are defined in Γ. This can be stated as follows:

-   -   Γ├e:T

The assertion e:T, i.e., the assertion that expression e has type T, is a relation. In other words, a given expression may be said to have many types. An expression e is said to be well-typed in context Γ if there exists a type T such that Γ├ e:T. A (formal) type system can be specified by giving a set of type rules that define the validity of certain judgments on the basis of other judgments that are assumed to be valid.

Another judgment form is a subtyping judgment that asserts that a type S is a subtype of another type T, and is written as follows.

-   -   Γ├S<:T

The type system of the “D” programming language can be formally specified by giving a set of type rules that define such judgments. For example, determining whether a typecase expression is well-typed is defined by the following type rule.

$\frac{\Gamma \vdash {e:S}}{\Gamma \vdash {e\mspace{14mu} {in}\mspace{14mu} {T:{Logical}}}}$

In other words, the expression e in T is well-typed (and of type Logical) in context Γ if expression is of some type S.

Another rule allows subtyping to be introduced.

$\frac{\Gamma \vdash {e:{{S\mspace{14mu} \Gamma} \vdash {S\mspace{11mu} \text{<:}\mspace{11mu} T}}}}{\Gamma \vdash {e:T}}$

This rule states that if an expression e is of type S in context Γ and, moreover, S is a subtype of T, then expression e is also of type T.

The rule for determining whether an expression is of the type Any is as follows.

$\frac{\Gamma \vdash {e:S}}{\Gamma \vdash {e:{Any}}}$

The rule for determining whether an expression is of a refinement type is as follows.

$\frac{{{\Gamma \vdash {e\; 1}}:{T\mspace{14mu} \Gamma}},{x:{{T \vdash {e\; 2}}:{{Logical}\mspace{14mu} {check\_ is}{\_ true}\left( {\Gamma,{e\; {2\left\lbrack {e\; {1/x}} \right\rbrack}}} \right)}}}}{\Gamma \vdash {e\; 1\text{:}\mspace{11mu} \left\{ {x\text{:}\mspace{11mu} T} \middle| {e\; 2} \right\}}}$

In other words, if expression e1 is of type T in context Γ, and expression e2 is of type Logical in context (Γ, x:T), and the Boolean expression e2 with e1 substituted for x can be determined to be logically true (we assume some auxiliary routine check_is_true to determine this fact), then the expression e1 is of type {x:T|e2}. An example of a derivation of a valid judgment is as follows.

$\frac{\begin{matrix} {{\varnothing \vdash 42}:{{Integer}\mspace{14mu} {x:{{{Integer} \vdash {x > 41}}:}}}} \\ {{Logical}\mspace{14mu} {check\_ is}{\_ true}\left( {\varnothing,{42 > 41}} \right)} \end{matrix}}{{\varnothing \vdash 42}:\left\{ {x:\left. {Integer} \middle| {x > 41} \right.} \right\}}$

The auxiliary check (check_is_true) that the refinement expression is satisfied may alternatively not be performed by the type-system but may be inserted into the expression to be checked at runtime.

Accordingly, by implementing a type system as described above, and adhering to the above-described rules and judgments, expressive types can be specified as part of programs that can be statically verified.

FIG. 14 is a flow diagram illustrating a process for defining declarative code according to a declarative programming model comprising a type system supporting type refinement and type membership. At 1400, a specification of programming construct(s) of a declarative programming language is received by a computing system, device, application or service. At 1410, this may include receiving a programming construct specifying a refinement type construct that defines one or more types by specifying values for which a Boolean expression is true. As shown at 1420, this may also include receiving, within the type refinement construct, a specification of a type membership test construct that determines whether one or more resulting values of evaluating an expression is a member of an indicated type. At 1430, a machine readable representation of code can be generated based on the specification of the programming construct(s). Advantageously, the type system enables, but is not limited to enabling, intersection and/or union operations on different types.

FIG. 15 is a block diagram of a system including a data processing system 1520 communicatively coupled to data store(s) 1550 for performing data intensive processing with declarative code. In this regard, system 1520 includes declarative code modules that implement a type system 1510 supporting constraint-based type refinement and type membership. The declarative code 1530 is specified according to a declarative programming model 1500 that supports an underlying type system 1510 that supports a refinement type of the type system that defines a type by shaping the type relative to an unlimited top level type representing all types. In addition, the refinement type can include a typecase construct that tests an evaluation of an expression for membership of an indicated type. Furthermore, a type checking component 1540 evaluates types of the declarative code to determine an error based on at least one rule that defines the validity of typing of the programming construct. Also, as mentioned, any of the embodiments herein may be in the context of a programming language wherein types can have values and values can have types.

FIG. 16 is a flow diagram illustrating a process for executing declarative code by at least one processor of a computing device. At 1600, a declarative program is received, wherein the declarative program is specified according to a typing system that supports, within a programming construct of the declarative program, typing by refinement, evaluation of type membership and a top type of which all valid values of the declarative program are a member. At 1610, the declarative program can optionally be specified according to a typing system that supports types having values and values having types. At 1620, the types represented in the declarative program are type checked according to a set of typing rules and judgments associated with the typing system. At 1630, execution, storage or modification of the declarative program can take place.

Exemplary Declarative Programming Language

For the avoidance of doubt, the additional context provided in this subsection regarding a declarative programming language, such as the D programming language, is to be considered non-exhaustive and non-limiting. The particular example snippets of pseudo-code set forth below are for illustrative and explanatory purposes only, and are not to be considered limiting on the embodiments of the type checking for a data scripting language described above in various detail.

In FIG. 17, an exemplary process chain for a declarative model is provided, such as a model based on the D programming language. As illustrated, process chain 1700 may include a coupling of compiler 1720, packaging component 1730, synchronization component 1740, and a plurality of repositories 1750, 1752, . . . , 1754. Within such embodiment, a source code 1710 input to compiler 1720 represents a declarative execution model authored in a declarative programming language, such as the D programming language. With the D programming language, for instance, the execution model embodied by source code 1710 advantageously follows constraint-based typing, or structural typing, and/or advantageously embodies an order-independent or unordered execution model to simplify the development of code.

Compiler 1720 processes source codes 1710 and can generate a post-processed definition for each source code. Although other systems perform compilation down to an imperative format, the declarative format of the source code, while transformed, is preserved. Packaging component 1730 packages the post-processed definitions as image files, such as D-Image files in the case of the D programming language, which are installable into particular repositories 1750, 1752, . . . , 1754. Image files include definitions of necessary metadata and extensible storage to store multiple transformed artifacts together with their declarative source model. For example, packaging component 1730 may set particular metadata properties and store the declarative source definition together with compiler output artifacts as content parts in an image file.

With the D programming language, the packaging format employed by packaging component 1730 is conformable with the ECMA Open Packaging Conventions (OPC) standards. One of ordinary skill would readily appreciate that this standard intrinsically offers features like compression, grouping, signing, and the like. This standard also defines a public programming model (API), which allows an image file to be manipulated via standard programming tools. For example, in the .NET Framework, the API is defined within the “System.IO.Packaging” namespace.

Synchronization component 1740 is a tool that can be used to manage image files. For example, synchronization component 1740 may take an image file as an input and link it with a set of referenced image files. In between or afterwards, there could be several supporting tools (like re-writers, optimizers, etc.) operating over the image file by extracting packaged artifacts, processing them and adding more artifacts in the same image file. These tools may also manipulate some metadata of the image file to change the state of the image file, e.g., digitally signing an image file to ensure its integrity and security.

Next, a deployment utility deploys the image file and an installation tool installs it into a running execution environment within repositories 1750, 1752, . . . , 1754. Once an image file is deployed, it may be subject to various post deployment tasks including export, discovery, servicing, versioning, uninstall and more. With the D programming language, the packaging format offers support for all these operations while still meeting enterprise-level industry requirements like security, extensibility, scalability and performance. In one embodiment, repositories 1750 can be a collection of relational database management systems (RDBMS), however any storage can be accommodated.

In one embodiment, the methods described herein are operable with a programming language having a constraint-based type system. Such a constraint-based system provides functionality not simply available with traditional, nominal type systems. In FIGS. 18-19, a nominally typedexecution system is compared to a constraint-based typed execution system according to an embodiment of the invention. As illustrated, the nominal system 1800 assigns a particular type for every value, whereas values in constraint-based system 1810 may conform with any of an infinite number of types.

For an illustration of the contrast between a nominally-typed execution model and a constraint-based typed model according to a declarative programming language described herein, such as the D programming language, exemplary code for type declarations of each model are compared below.

First, with respect to a nominally-typed execution model the following exemplary C# code is illustrative:

class A {  public string Bar;  public int Foo; } class B {  public string Bar;  public int Foo; }

For this declaration, a rigid type-value relationship exists in which A and B values are considered incomparable even if the values of their fields, Bar and Foo, are identical. In contrast, with respect to a constraint-based model, the following exemplary D code (discussed in more detail below) is illustrative of how objects can conform to a number of types:

type A { Bar : Text; Foo : Integer; } type B { Bar : Text; Foo : Integer; }

For this declaration, the type-value relationship is much more flexible as all values that conform to type A also conform to B, and vice-versa. Moreover, types in a constraint-based model may be layered on top of each other, which provides flexibility that can be useful, e.g., for programming across various RDBMSs. Indeed, because types in a constraint-based model initially include all values in the universe, a particular value is conformable with all types in which the value does not violate a constraint codified in the type's declaration. The set of values conformable with type defined by the declaration type T: Text where value<128 thus includes “all values in the universe” that do not violate the “Integer” constraint or the “value<128” constraint.

Thus, in one embodiment, the programming language of the source code is a purely declarative language that includes a constraint-based type system as described above, such as implemented in the D programming language.

In another embodiment, the method described herein is also operable with a programming language having an order-independent, or unordered, execution model. Similar to the above described constraint-based execution model, such an order-independent execution model provides flexibility that can be useful, e.g., for programming across various RDBMSs.

In FIGS. 20-21, for illustrative purposes, a data storage abstraction according to an ordered execution model is compared to a data storage abstraction according to an order-independent execution model. For example, data storage abstraction 2000 of FIG. 20 represents a list Foo created according to an ordered execution model, whereas data abstraction 2010 of FIG. 21 represents a similar list Foo created by an order-independent execution model.

As illustrated, each of data storage abstractions 2000 and 2010 include a set of three Bar values (i.e., “1”, “2”, and “3”). However, data storage abstraction 2000 requires these Bar values to be entered/listed in a particular order, whereas data storage abstraction 2010 has no such requirement. Instead, data storage abstraction 2010 simply assigns an ID to each Bar value, wherein the order that these Bar values were entered/listed is unobservable to the targeted repository. For instance, data storage abstraction 2010 may have thus resulted from the following order-independent code:

f: Foo* = {Bar = “1”}; f: Foo* = {Bar = “2”}; f: Foo* = {Bar = “3”};

However, data storage abstraction 2010 may have also resulted from the following code:

f: Foo* = {Bar = “3”}; f: Foo* = {Bar = “1”}; f: Foo* = {Bar = “2”};

And each of the two codes above are functionally equivalent to the following code:

f: Foo*={{Bar=“2”}, {Bar=“3”}, {Bar=“1”}};

An exemplary declarative language that is compatible with the above described constraint based typing and unordered execution model is the D programming language, sometimes referred to herein as “D” for convenience, which was developed by the assignee of the present invention. However, in addition to D, it is to be understood that other similar declarative programming languages may be used, and that the utility of the invention is not limited to any single programming language, where any one or more of the embodiments of the type checking for a data scripting language described above apply. In this regard, some additional context regarding D is provided below.

As mentioned, D is a declarative language for working with data. D lets users determine how they want to structure and query their data using a convenient textual syntax that is both authorable and readable. In one non-limiting aspect, a D program includes of one or more source files, known formally as compilation units, wherein the source file is an ordered sequence of Unicode characters. Source files typically have a one-to-one correspondence with files in a file system, but this correspondence is not required. For maximal portability, it is recommended that files in a file system be encoded with the UTF-8 encoding.

Conceptually speaking, a D program is compiled using four steps: 1) Lexical analysis, which translates a stream of Unicode input characters into a stream of tokens (Lexical analysis evaluates and executes preprocessing directives); 2) Syntactic analysis, which translates the stream of tokens into an abstract syntax tree; 3) Semantic analysis, which resolves all symbols in the abstract syntax tree, type checks the structure and generates a semantic graph; and 4) Code generation, which generates executable instructions from the semantic graph for some target runtime (e.g. SQL, producing an image). Further tools may link images and load them into a runtime.

As a declarative language, D does not mandate how data is stored or accessed, nor does it mandate a specific implementation technology (in contrast to a domain specific language such as XAML). Rather, D was designed to allow users to write down what they want from their data without having to specify how those desires are met against a given technology or platform. That stated, D in no way prohibits implementations from providing rich declarative or imperative support for controlling how D constructs are represented and executed in a given environment, and thus, enables rich development flexibility.

D builds on three basic concepts: values, types, and extents. These three concepts can be defined as follows: 1) a value is data that conforms to the rules of the D language, 2) a type describes a set of values, and 3) an extent provides dynamic storage for values.

In general, D separates the typing of data from the storage/extent of the data. A given type can be used to describe data from multiple extents as well as to describe the results of a calculation. This allows users to start writing down types first and decide where to put or calculate the corresponding values later.

On the topic of determining where to put values, the D language does not specify how an implementation maps a declared extent to an external store such as an RDBMS. However, D was designed to make such implementations possible and is compatible with the relational model.

With respect to data management, D is a functional language that does not have constructs for changing the contents of an extent, however, D anticipates that the contents of an extent can change via external (to D) stimuli and optionally, D can be modified to provide declarative constructs for updating data.

It is often desirable to write down how to categorize values for the purposes of validation or allocation. In D, values are categorized using types, wherein a D type describes a collection of acceptable or conformant values. Moreover, D types are used to constrain which values may appear in a particular context (e.g., an operand, a storage location).

With a few notable exceptions, D allows types to be used as collections. For example, the “in” operator can be used to test whether a value conforms to a given type, such as:

1 in Number

“Hello, world” in Text

It should be noted that the names of built-in types are available directly in the D language. New names for types, however, may also be introduced using type declarations. For example, the type declaration below introduces the type name “My Text” as a synonym for the “Text” simple type:

type [My Text]: Text;

With this type name now available, the following code may be written:

“Hello, world” in [My Text]

While it is useful to introduce custom names for an existing type, it is even more useful to apply a predicate to an underlying type, such as:

type SmallText: Text where value.Count<7;

In this example, the universe of possible “Text” values has been constrained to those in which the value contains less than seven characters. Accordingly, the following statements hold true for this type definition:

“Terse” in SmallText !(“Verbose” in SmallText)

Type declarations compose:

type TinyText: SmallText where value.Count<6;

However, in this example, this declaration is equivalent to the following:

type TinyText: Text where value.Count<6;

It is noted that the name of the type exists so a D declaration or expression can refer to it. Any number of names can be assigned to the same type (e.g., Text where value.Count<7) and a given value either conforms to all of them or to none of them. For example, consider this example:

type A : Number where value < 100; type B : Number where value < 100:

Given these two type definitions, both of the following expressions:

1 in A

1 in B

will evaluate to true. If the following third type is introduced:

type C: Number where value>0;

the following can be stated:

1 in C

A general principle of D is that a given value can conform to any number of types. This is a departure from the way many object-based systems work, in which a value is bound to a specific type at initialization-time and is a member of the finite set of subtypes that were specified when the type was defined.

Another type-related operation that bears discussion is the type ascription operator (:). The type ascription operator asserts that a given value conforms to a specific type.

In general, when values in expressions are seen, D has some notion of the expected type of that value based on the declared result type for the operator/function being applied. For example, the result of the logical and operator (&&) is declared to be conformant with type “Logical.”

It is occasionally useful (or even required) to apply additional constraints to a given value—typically to use that value in another context that has differing requirements. For example, consider the following type definition:

type SuperPositive: Number where value>5;

Assuming that there is a function named “CalcIt” that is declared to accept a value of type “SuperPositive” as an operand, it is desirable to allow expressions like this in D:

CalcIt(20) CalcIt(42 + 99) and prohibit expressions like this:

CalcIt(−1) CalcIt(4)

In fact, D does exactly what is wanted for these four examples. This is because these expressions express their operands in terms of built-in operators over constants. All of the information needed to determine the validity of the expressions is readily available the moment the D source text for the expression is encountered at little cost.

However, if the expression draws upon dynamic sources of data and/or user-defined functions, the type ascription operator is used to assert that a value will conform to a given type.

To understand how the type ascription operator works with values, a second function, “GetVowelCount,” is assumed that is declared to accept an operand of type “Text” and return a value of type “Number” that indicates the number of vowels in the operand.

Since it is unknown based on the declaration of “GetVowelCount” whether its results will be greater than five or not, the following expression is thus not a legal D expression:

CalcIt(GetVowelCount(someTextVariable))

The expression is not legal because the declared result type (Number) of “GetVowelCount” includes values that do not conform to the declared operand type of “CalcIt” (SuperPositive). This expression can be presumed to have been written in error.

However, this expression can be rewritten to the following (legal) expression using the type ascription operator:

CalcIt((GetVowelCount(someTextVariable):SuperPositive))

By this expression, D is informed that there is enough understanding of the “GetVowelCount” function to know that a value that conforms to the type “SuperPositive” will be obtained. In short, the programmer is telling D that he/she knows what D is doing.

However, if the programmer does not know, e.g., if the programmer misjudged how the “GetVowelCount” function works, a particular evaluation may result in a negative number. Because the “CalcIt” function was declared to only accept values that conform to “SuperPositive,” the system will ensure that all values passed to it are greater than five. To ensure this constraint is never violated, the system may inject a dynamic constraint test that has a potential to fail when evaluated. This failure will not occur when the D source text is first processed (as was the case with CalcIt(−1))—rather it will occur when the expression is actually evaluated.

In this regard, D implementations typically attempt to report any constraint violations before the first expression in a D document is evaluated. This is called static enforcement and implementations will manifest this much like a syntax error. However, some constraints can only be enforced against live data and therefore require dynamic enforcement.

In this respect, D make it easy for users to write down their intention and put the burden on the D implementation to “make it work.” Optionally, to allow a particular D document to be used in diverse environments, a fully featured D implementation can be configurable to reject D documents that rely on dynamic enforcement for correctness in order to reduce the performance and operational costs of dynamic constraint violations.

For further background regard, D, a type constructor can be defined for specifying collection types. The collection type constructor restricts the type and count of elements a collection may contain. All collection types are restrictions over the intrinsic type “Collection,” e.g., all collection values conform to the following expressions:

{ } in Collection { 1, false } in Collection ! (“Hello” in Collection)

The last example demonstrates that the collection types do not overlap with the simple types. There is no value that conforms to both a collection type and a simple type.

A collection type constructor specifies both the type of element and the acceptable element count. The element count is typically specified using one of the three operators:

T* - zero or more Ts T+ - one or more Ts T#m..n - between m and n Ts.

The collection type constructors can either use Kleene operators or be written longhand as a constraint over the intrinsic type Collection—that is, the following type declarations describe the same set of collection values:

type SomeNumbers : Number+; type TwoToFourNumbers : Number#2..4; type ThreeNumbers : Number#3; type FourOrMoreNumbers : Number#4..;

These types describe the same sets of values as these longhand definitions:

type SomeNumbers : Collection where value.Count >= 1   && item in Number; type TwoToFourNumbers : Collection where value.Count >= 2   && value.Count <= 4   && item in Number; type ThreeNumbers : Collection where value.Count == 3   && item in Number; type FourOrMoreNumbers : Collection where value.Count >= 4   && item in Number;

Independent of which form is used to declare the types, the following expressions can be stated:

!({ } in TwoToFourNumbers) !({ “One”, “Two”, “Three” } in TwoToFourNumbers) { 1, 2, 3 } in TwoToFourNumbers { 1, 2, 3 } in ThreeNumbers { 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 } in FourOrMoreNumbers

The collection type constructors compose with the “where” operator, allowing the following type check to succeed:

{1, 2} in (Number where value<3)* where value.Count % 2==0 It is noted that the inner “where” operator applies to elements of the collection, and the outer “where” operator applies to the collection itself.

Just as collection type constructors can be used to specify what kinds of collections are valid in a given context, the same can be done for entities using entity types.

In this regard, an entity type declares the expected members for a set of entity values. The members of an entity type can be declared either as fields or as calculated values. The value of a field is stored; the value of a calculated value is computed. Entity types are restrictions over the Entity type, which is defined in the D standard library.

The following is a simple entity type:

type MyEntity: Language.Entity;

The type “MyEntity” does not declare any fields. In D, entity types are open in that entity values that conform to the type may contain fields whose names are not declared in the type. Thus, the following type test:

{X=100, Y=200} in MyEntity

will evaluate to true, as the “MyEntity” type says nothing about fields named X and Y.

Entity types can contain one or more field declarations. At a minimum, a field declaration states the name of the expected field, e.g.:

type Point {X; Y;}

This type definition describes the set of entities that contain at least fields named X and Y irrespective of the values of those fields, which means that the following type tests evaluate to true:

{ X = 100, Y = 200 } in Point { X = 100, Y = 200, Z = 300 } in Point // more fields than expected OK ! ({ X = 100 } in Point)   // not enough fields - not OK { X = true, Y = “Hello, world” } in Point

The last example demonstrates that the “Point” type does not constrain the values of the X and Y fields, i.e., any value is allowed. A new type that constrains the values of X and Y to numeric values is illustrated as follows:

type NumericPoint {  X : Number;  Y : Number where value > 0; }

It is noted that type ascription syntax is used to assert that the value of the X and Y fields should conform to the type “Number.” With this in place, the following expressions evaluate to true:

{ X = 100, Y = 200 } in NumericPoint { X = 100, Y = 200, Z = 300 } in NumericPoint ! ({ X = true, Y = “Hello, world” } in NumericPoint) ! ({ X = 0, Y = 0 } in NumericPoint)

As was seen in the discussion of simple types, the name of the type exists so that D declarations and expressions can refer to it. That is why both of the following type tests succeed:

{ X = 100, Y = 200 } in NumericPoint { X = 100, Y = 200 } in Point even though the definitions of NumericPoint and Point are independent.

Fields in D are named units of storage that hold values. D allows the developer to initialize the value of a field as part of an entity initializer. However, D does not specify any mechanism for changing the value of a field once it is initialized. In D, it is assumed that any changes to field values happen outside the scope of D.

A field declaration can indicate that there is a default value for the field. Field declarations that have a default value do not require conformant entities to have a corresponding field specified (such field declarations are sometimes called optional fields). For example, with respect to the following type definition:

type Point3d {  X : Number;  Y : Number;  Z = −1 : Number; // default value of negative one } Since the Z field has a default value, the following type test will succeed:

{X=100, Y=200} in Point3d

Moreover, if a type ascription operator is applied to the value as follows:

({X=100, Y=200}: Point3d)

then the Z field can be accessed as follows:

({X=100, Y=200}: Point3d).Z

in which case this expression will yield the value −1.

In another non-limiting aspect, if a field declaration does not have a corresponding default value, conformant entities must specify a value for that field. Default values are typically written down using the explicit syntax shown for the Z field of “Point3d.” If the type of a field is either nullable or a zero-to-many collection, then there is an implicit default value for the declaring field of null for optional and { } for the collection.

For example, considering the following type:

type PointND {  X : Number;  Y : Number;  Z : Number?;   // Z is optional  BeyondZ : Number*; // BeyondZ is optional too }

Then, again, the following type test will succeed:

{X=100, Y=200} in PointND

and ascribing the “PointND” to the value yields these defaults:

({ X = 100, Y = 200 } : PointND).Z == null ({ X = 100, Y = 200 } : PointND).BeyondZ == { }

The choice of using a zero-to-one collection or nullable type vs. an explicit default value to model optional fields typically comes down to one of style.

Calculated values are named expressions whose values are calculated rather than stored. An example of a type that declares such a calculated value is:

type PointPlus {  X : Number;  Y : Number; // a calculated value  IsHigh( ) : Logical { Y > 0; } } Note that unlike field declarations, which end in a semicolon, calculated value declarations end with the expression surrounded by braces.

Like field declarations, a calculated value declaration may omit the type ascription, like this example:

type PointPlus {  X : Number;  Y : Number; // a calculated value with no type ascription  InMagicQuadrant( ) { IsHigh && X > 0; }  IsHigh( ) : Logical { Y > 0; } }

In another non-limiting aspect, when no type is explicitly ascribed to a calculated value, D can infer the type automatically based on the declared result type of the underlying expression. In this example, because the logical and operator used in the expression was declared as returning a “Logical,” the “InMagicQuadrant” calculated value also is ascribed to yield a “Logical” value.

The two calculated values defined and used above did not require any additional information to calculate their results other than the entity value itself. A calculated value may optionally declare a list of named parameters whose actual values must be specified when using the calculated value in an expression. The following is an example of a calculated value that requires parameters:

type PointPlus {  X : Number;  Y : Number;  // a calculated value that requires a parameter  WithinBounds(radius : Number) : Logical {   X * X + Y * Y <= radius * radius;  }  InMagicQuadrant( ) { IsHigh && X > 0; }  IsHigh( ) : Logical { Y > 0; } }

To use this calculated value in an expression, one provides values for the two parameters as follows:

({X=100, Y=200}: PointPlus).WithinBounds(50)

When calculating the value of “WithinBounds,” D binds the value 50 to the symbol radius, which causes the “WithinBounds” calculated value to evaluate to false.

It is noted with D that both calculated values and default values for fields are part of the type definition, not part of the values that conform to the type. For example, considering these three type definitions:

type Point {  X : Number;  Y : Number; } type RichPoint {  X : Number;  Y : Number;  Z = −1 : Number;  IsHigh( ) : Logical { X < Y; } } type WeirdPoint {  X : Number;  Y : Number;  Z = 42 : Number;  IsHigh( ) : Logical { false; } }

Since RichPoint and WeirdPoint only have two required fields (X and Y), the following can be stated:

{ X=1, Y=2 } in RichPoint { X=1, Y=2 } in WeirdPoint

However, the “IsHigh” calculated value is only available when one of these two types is ascribed to the entity value:

({ X=1, Y=2 } : RichPoint).IsHigh == true ({ X=1, Y=2 } : WeirdPoint).IsHigh == false

Because the calculated value is purely part of the type and not the value, when the ascription is chained, such as follows:

(({X=1, Y=2}: RichPoint):WeirdPoint).IsHigh==false

then, the outer-most ascription determines which function is called.

A similar principle is at play with respect to how default values work. It is again noted the default value is part of the type, not the entity value. Thus, when the following expression is written:

({X=1, Y=2}: RichPoint).Z==−1

the underlying entity value still only contains two field values (1 and 2 for X and Y, respectively). In this regard, where default values differ from calculated values, ascriptions are chained. For example, considering the following expression:

(({X=1, Y=2}: RichPoint):WeirdPoint).Z==−1

Since the “RichPoint” ascription is applied first, the resultant entity has a field named Z having a value of −1; however, there is no storage allocated for the value, i.e., it is part of the type's interpretation of the value. Accordingly, when the “WeirdPoint” ascription is applied, it is applied to the result of the first ascription, which does have a field named Z, so that value is used to specify the value for Z. The default value specified by “WeirdPoint” is thus not needed.

Like all types, a constraint may be applied to an entity type using the “where” operator. Consider the following D type definition:

type HighPoint {  X : Number;  Y : Number; } where X < Y;

In this example, all values that conform to the type “HighPoint” are guaranteed to have an X value that is less than the Y value. That means that the following expressions:

{ X = 100, Y = 200 } in HighPoint ! ({ X = 300, Y = 200 } in HighPoint) both evaluate to true.

Moreover, with respect to the following type definitions:

type Point {  X : Number;  Y : Number; } type Visual {  Opacity : Number; } type VisualPoint {  DotSize : Number; } where value in Point && value in Visual; the third type, “VisualPoint,” names the set of entity values that have at least the numeric fields X, Y, Opacity, and DotSize.

Since it is a common desire to factor member declarations into smaller pieces that can be composed, D also provides explicit syntax support for factoring. For instance, the “VisualPoint” type definition can be rewritten using that syntax:

type VisualPoint : Point, Visual {  DotSize : Number; }

To be clear, this is shorthand for the long-hand definition above that used a constraint expression. Furthermore, both this shorthand definition and long-hand definition are equivalent to this even longer-hand definition:

type VisualPoint = {  X : Number;  Y : Number;  Opacity : Number;  DotSize : Number; }

Again, the names of the types are just ways to refer to types—the values themselves have no record of the type names used to describe them.

D can also extend LINQ query comprehensions with several features to make authoring simple queries more concise. The keywords, “where” and “select” are available as binary infix operators. Also, indexers are automatically added to strongly typed collections. These features allow common queries to be authored more compactly as illustrated below.

As an example of where as an infix operator, the following query extracts people under 30 from a defined collection of “People”:

from p in People where p.Age = 30 select p

An equivalent query can be written:

People where value.Age=30

The “where” operator takes a collection on the left and a Boolean expression on the right. The “where” operator introduces a keyword identifier value in to the scope of the Boolean expression that is bound to each member of the collection. The resulting collection contains the members for which the expression is true. Thus, the expression:

Collection where Expression

is equivalent to:

from value in Collection where Expression select value

The D compiler adds indexer members on collections with strongly typed elements. For the collection “People,” for instance, the compiler might add indexers for “First(Text),” “Last(Text),” and “Age(Number).”

Accordingly, the statement:

Collection.Field (Expression)

is equivalent to:

from value in Collection where Field == Expression select value

“Select” is also available as an infix operator. With respect to the following simple query:

from p in People select p.First + p.Last the “select” expression is computed over each member of the collection and returns the result. Using the infix “select” the query can be written equivalently as:

People select value.First+value.Last

The “select” operator takes a collection on the left and an arbitrary expression on the right. As with “where,” “select” introduces the keyword identifier value that ranges over each element in the collection. The “select” operator maps the expression over each element in the collection and returns the result. For another example, the statement:

Collection select Expression

is equivalent to the following:

from value in Collection select Expression

A trivial use of the “select” operator is to extract a single field:

People select value.First

The compiler adds accessors to the collection so single fields can be extracted directly as “People.First” and “People.Last.”

To write a legal D document, all source text appears in the context of a module definition. A module defines a top-level namespace for any type names that are defined. A module also defines a scope for defining extents that will store actual values, as well as calculated values.

The following is a simple example of a module definition:

module Geometry {  // declare a type  type Point {   X : Integer; Y : Integer;  }  // declare some extents  Points : Point*;  Origin : Point;  // declare a calculated value  TotalPointCount { Points.Count + 1; } }

In this example, the module defines one type named “Geometry.Point.” This type describes what point values will look like, but does not define any locations where those values can be stored.

This example also includes two module-scoped fields (Points and Origin). Module-scoped field declarations are identical in syntax to those used in entity types. However, fields declared in an entity type simply name the potential for storage once an extent has been determined; in contrast, fields declared at module-scope name actual storage that must be mapped by an implementation in order to load and interpret the module.

In addition, modules can refer to declarations in other modules by using an import directive to name the module containing the referenced declarations. For a declaration to be referenced by other modules, the declaration is explicitly exported using an export directive.

For example, considering the following module:

module MyModule {  import HerModule; // declares HerType  export MyType1;  export MyExtent1;  type MyType1 : Logical*;  type MyType2 : HerType;  MyExtent1 : Number*;  MyExtent2 : HerType; } It is noted that only “MyType1” and “MyExtent1” are visible to other modules, which makes the following definition of “HerModule” legal:

module HerModule {  import MyModule; // declares MyType1 and MyExtent1  export HerType;  type HerType : Text where value.Count < 100;  type Private : Number where !(value in MyExtent1);  SomeStorage : MyType1; } As this example shows, modules may have circular dependencies.

The types of the D language are divided into two main categories: intrinsic types and derived types. An intrinsic type is a type that cannot be defined using D language constructs but rather is defined entirely in the D language specification. An intrinsic type may name at most one intrinsic type as its super-type as part of its specification. Values are an instance of exactly one intrinsic type, and conform to the specification of that one intrinsic type and all of its super types.

A derived type is a type whose definition is constructed in D source text using the type constructors that are provided in the language. A derived type is defined as a constraint over another type, which creates an explicit subtyping relationship. Values conform to any number of derived types simply by virtue of satisfying the derived type's constraint. There is no a priori affiliation between a value and a derived type—rather a given value that conforms to a derived type's constraint may be interpreted as that type at will.

D offers a broad range of options in defining types. Any expression which returns a collection can be declared as a type. The type predicates for entities and collections are expressions and fit this form. A type declaration may explicitly enumerate its members or be composed of other types.

Another distinction is between a structurally typed language, like D, and a nominally typed language. A type in D is a specification for a set of values. Two types are the same if the exact same collection of values conforms to both regardless of the name of the types. It is not required that a type be named to be used. A type expression is allowed wherever a type reference is required. Types in D are simply expressions that return collections.

If every value that conforms to type A also conforms to type B, then A is a subtype of B (and B is a super-type of A). Subtyping is transitive, that is, if A is a subtype of B and B is a subtype of C, then A is a subtype of C (and C is a super-type of A). Subtyping is reflexive, that is, A is a (vacuous) subtype of A (and A is a super-type of A).

Types are considered collections of all values that satisfy the type predicate. For that reason, any operation on a collection can be applied to a type and a type can be manipulated with expressions like any other collection value.

D provides two primary means for values to come into existence: calculated values and stored values (a.k.a. fields). Calculated and stored values may occur with both module and entity declarations and are scoped by their container. A computed value is derived from evaluating an expression that is typically defined as part of D source text. In contrast, a field stores a value and the contents of the field may change over time.

Exemplary Networked and Distributed Environments

One of ordinary skill in the art can appreciate that the various embodiments for type checking for a data scripting language described herein can be implemented in connection with any computer or other client or server device, which can be deployed as part of a computer network or in a distributed computing environment, and can be connected to any kind of data store. In this regard, the various embodiments described herein can be implemented in any computer system or environment having any number of memory or storage units, and any number of applications and processes occurring across any number of storage units. This includes, but is not limited to, an environment with server computers and client computers deployed in a network environment or a distributed computing environment, having remote or local storage.

Distributed computing provides sharing of computer resources and services by communicative exchange among computing devices and systems. These resources and services include the exchange of information, cache storage and disk storage for objects, such as files. These resources and services also include the sharing of processing power across multiple processing units for load balancing, expansion of resources, specialization of processing, and the like. Distributed computing takes advantage of network connectivity, allowing clients to leverage their collective power to benefit the entire enterprise. In this regard, a variety of devices may have applications, objects or resources that may cooperate to perform one or more aspects of any of the various embodiments of the subject disclosure.

FIG. 22 provides a schematic diagram of an exemplary networked or distributed computing environment. The distributed computing environment comprises computing objects 2210, 2212, etc. and computing objects or devices 2220, 2222, 2224, 2226, 2228, etc., which may include programs, methods, data stores, programmable logic, etc., as represented by applications 2230, 2232, 2234, 2236, 2238. It can be appreciated that objects 2210, 2212, etc. and computing objects or devices 2220, 2222, 2224, 2226, 2228, etc. may comprise different devices, such as PDAs, audio/video devices, mobile phones, MP3 players, personal computers, laptops, etc.

Each object 2210, 2212, etc. and computing objects or devices 2220, 2222, 2224, 2226, 2228, etc. can communicate with one or more other objects 2210, 2212, etc. and computing objects or devices 2220, 2222, 2224, 2226, 2228, etc. by way of the communications network 2240, either directly or indirectly. Even though illustrated as a single element in FIG. 22, network 2240 may comprise other computing objects and computing devices that provide services to the system of FIG. 22, and/or may represent multiple interconnected networks, which are not shown. Each object 2210, 2212, etc. or 2220, 2222, 2224, 2226, 2228, etc. can also contain an application, such as applications 2230, 2232, 2234, 2236, 2238, that might make use of an API, or other object, software, firmware and/or hardware, suitable for communication with, processing for, or implementation of the type checking for a data scripting language provided in accordance with various embodiments of the subject disclosure.

There are a variety of systems, components, and network configurations that support distributed computing environments. For example, computing systems can be connected together by wired or wireless systems, by local networks or widely distributed networks. Currently, many networks are coupled to the Internet, which provides an infrastructure for widely distributed computing and encompasses many different networks, though any network infrastructure can be used for exemplary communications made incident to the type checking for a data scripting language as described in various embodiments.

Thus, a host of network topologies and network infrastructures, such as client/server, peer-to-peer, or hybrid architectures, can be utilized. The “client” is a member of a class or group that uses the services of another class or group to which it is not related. A client can be a process, i.e., roughly a set of instructions or tasks, that requests a service provided by another program or process. The client process utilizes the requested service without having to “know” any working details about the other program or the service itself.

In a client/server architecture, particularly a networked system, a client is usually a computer that accesses shared network resources provided by another computer, e.g., a server. In the illustration of FIG. 22, as a non-limiting example, computers 2220, 2222, 2224, 2226, 2228, etc. can be thought of as clients and computers 2210, 2212, etc. can be thought of as servers where servers 2210, 2212, etc. provide data services, such as receiving data from client computers 2220, 2222, 2224, 2226, 2228, etc., storing of data, processing of data, transmitting data to client computers 2220, 2222, 2224, 2226, 2228, etc., although any computer can be considered a client, a server, or both, depending on the circumstances. Any of these computing devices may be processing data, encoding data, querying data or requesting services or tasks that may implicate the type checking for a data scripting language as described herein for one or more embodiments.

A server is typically a remote computer system accessible over a remote or local network, such as the Internet or wireless network infrastructures. The client process may be active in a first computer system, and the server process may be active in a second computer system, communicating with one another over a communications medium, thus providing distributed functionality and allowing multiple clients to take advantage of the information-gathering capabilities of the server. Any software objects utilized pursuant to the type checking for a data scripting language can be provided standalone, or distributed across multiple computing devices or objects.

In a network environment in which the communications network/bus 2240 is the Internet, for example, the servers 2210, 2212, etc. can be Web servers with which the clients 2220, 2222, 2224, 2226, 2228, etc. communicate via any of a number of known protocols, such as the hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP). Servers 2210, 2212, etc. may also serve as clients 2220, 2222, 2224, 2226, 2228, etc., as may be characteristic of a distributed computing environment.

Exemplary Computing Device

As mentioned, advantageously, the techniques described herein can be applied to any device where it is desirable to query large amounts of data quickly. It should be understood, therefore, that handheld, portable and other computing devices and computing objects of all kinds are contemplated for use in connection with the various embodiments, i.e., anywhere that a device may wish to scan or process huge amounts of data for fast and efficient results. Accordingly, the below general purpose remote computer described below in FIG. 23 is but one example of a computing device.

Although not required, embodiments can partly be implemented via an operating system, for use by a developer of services for a device or object, and/or included within application software that operates to perform one or more functional aspects of the various embodiments described herein. Software may be described in the general context of computer-executable instructions, such as program modules, being executed by one or more computers, such as client workstations, servers or other devices. Those skilled in the art will appreciate that computer systems have a variety of configurations and protocols that can be used to communicate data, and thus, no particular configuration or protocol should be considered limiting.

FIG. 23 thus illustrates an example of a suitable computing system environment 2300 in which one or aspects of the embodiments described herein can be implemented, although as made clear above, the computing system environment 2300 is only one example of a suitable computing environment and is not intended to suggest any limitation as to scope of use or functionality. Neither should the computing environment 2300 be interpreted as having any dependency or requirement relating to any one or combination of components illustrated in the exemplary operating environment 2300.

With reference to FIG. 23, an exemplary remote device for implementing one or more embodiments includes a general purpose computing device in the form of a computer 2310. Components of computer 2310 may include, but are not limited to, a processing unit 2320, a system memory 2330, and a system bus 2322 that couples various system components including the system memory to the processing unit 2320.

Computer 2310 typically includes a variety of computer readable media and can be any available media that can be accessed by computer 2310. The system memory 2330 may include computer storage media in the form of volatile and/or nonvolatile memory such as read only memory (ROM) and/or random access memory (RAM). By way of example, and not limitation, memory 2330 may also include an operating system, application programs, other program modules, and program data.

A user can enter commands and information into the computer 2310 through input devices 2340. A monitor or other type of display device is also connected to the system bus 2322 via an interface, such as output interface 2350. In addition to a monitor, computers can also include other peripheral output devices such as speakers and a printer, which may be connected through output interface 2350.

The computer 2310 may operate in a networked or distributed environment using logical connections to one or more other remote computers, such as remote computer 2370. The remote computer 2370 may be a personal computer, a server, a router, a network PC, a peer device or other common network node, or any other remote media consumption or transmission device, and may include any or all of the elements described above relative to the computer 2310. The logical connections depicted in FIG. 23 include a network 2372, such local area network (LAN) or a wide area network (WAN), but may also include other networks/buses. Such networking environments are commonplace in homes, offices, enterprise-wide computer networks, intranets and the Internet.

As mentioned above, while exemplary embodiments have been described in connection with various computing devices and network architectures, the underlying concepts may be applied to any network system and any computing device or system in which it is desirable to compress large scale data or process queries over large scale data.

Also, there are multiple ways to implement the same or similar functionality, e.g., an appropriate API, tool kit, driver code, operating system, control, standalone or downloadable software object, etc. which enables applications and services to use the efficient encoding and querying techniques. Thus, embodiments herein are contemplated from the standpoint of an API (or other software object), as well as from a software or hardware object that provides type checking for a data scripting language. Thus, various embodiments described herein can have aspects that are wholly in hardware, partly in hardware and partly in software, as well as in software.

The word “exemplary” is used herein to mean serving as an example, instance, or illustration. For the avoidance of doubt, the subject matter disclosed herein is not limited by such examples. In addition, any aspect or design described herein as “exemplary” is not necessarily to be construed as preferred or advantageous over other aspects or designs, nor is it meant to preclude equivalent exemplary structures and techniques known to those of ordinary skill in the art. Furthermore, to the extent that the terms “includes,” “has,” “contains,” and other similar words are used in either the detailed description or the claims, for the avoidance of doubt, such terms are intended to be inclusive in a manner similar to the term “comprising” as an open transition word without precluding any additional or other elements.

As mentioned, the various techniques described herein may be implemented in connection with hardware or software or, where appropriate, with a combination of both. As used herein, the terms “component,” “system” and the like are likewise intended to refer to a computer-related entity, either hardware, a combination of hardware and software, software, or software in execution. For example, a component may be, but is not limited to being, a process running on a processor, a processor, an object, an executable, a thread of execution, a program, and/or a computer. By way of illustration, both an application running on computer and the computer can be a component. One or more components may reside within a process and/or thread of execution and a component may be localized on one computer and/or distributed between two or more computers.

The aforementioned systems have been described with respect to interaction between several components. It can be appreciated that such systems and components can include those components or specified sub-components, some of the specified components or sub-components, and/or additional components, and according to various permutations and combinations of the foregoing. Sub-components can also be implemented as components communicatively coupled to other components rather than included within parent components (hierarchical). Additionally, it should be noted that one or more components may be combined into a single component providing aggregate functionality or divided into several separate sub-components, and that any one or more middle layers, such as a management layer, may be provided to communicatively couple to such sub-components in order to provide integrated functionality. Any components described herein may also interact with one or more other components not specifically described herein but generally known by those of skill in the art.

In view of the exemplary systems described supra, methodologies that may be implemented in accordance with the described subject matter will be better appreciated with reference to the flowcharts of the various figures. While for purposes of simplicity of explanation, the methodologies are shown and described as a series of blocks, it is to be understood and appreciated that the claimed subject matter is not limited by the order of the blocks, as some blocks may occur in different orders and/or concurrently with other blocks from what is depicted and described herein. Where non-sequential, or branched, flow is illustrated via flowchart, it can be appreciated that various other branches, flow paths, and orders of the blocks, may be implemented which achieve the same or a similar result. Moreover, not all illustrated blocks may be required to implement the methodologies described hereinafter.

In addition to the various embodiments described herein, it is to be understood that other similar embodiments can be used or modifications and additions can be made to the described embodiment(s) for performing the same or equivalent function of the corresponding embodiment(s) without deviating therefrom. Still further, multiple processing chips or multiple devices can share the performance of one or more functions described herein, and similarly, storage can be effected across a plurality of devices. Accordingly, the invention should not be limited to any single embodiment, but rather should be construed in breadth, spirit and scope in accordance with the appended claims. 

1. A method for testing at least one type of declarative program, including: receiving an expression of a programming construct of a declarative program generated according to a declarative programming model having a type system supporting refinement types combined with type membership evaluation; attempting to synthesize a type for the expression; and checking whether the expression in a given context has the type.
 2. The method of claim 1, wherein the attempting to synthesize includes determining if it is possible to synthesize a type for the expression, and if so, synthesizing and outputting the type.
 3. The method of claim 1, wherein the attempting to synthesize includes determining if it is possible to synthesize a type for the expression, and if not, outputting an error.
 4. The method of claim 1, wherein the checking includes evaluating the expression and if the expression checks against the type, outputting a Boolean true value from the checking step.
 5. The method of claim 1, wherein the checking includes evaluating the expression and if the expression does not check against the type, outputting a Boolean false value from the checking step.
 6. The method of claim 1, further comprising: if the attempting to synthesize results in synthesis of the type and the checking results in the expression checking against the type, identifying the programming construct as having a valid type for the expression.
 7. The method of claim 1, wherein the attempting to synthesize includes attempting to synthesize with reference to a set of rules governing synthesis of expressions in the type system.
 8. The method of claim 1, wherein the checking includes checking with reference to a set of rules governing checking of types in the type system.
 9. The method of claim 8, wherein the checking includes checking with reference to a set of rules that reduce the expression by transformation to determine a true or false result.
 10. The method of claim 8, wherein a subset of rules for refinement types, top Any types and variable types for type checking takes precedence over other rules of the set of rules.
 11. A computer system, including: at least one computer readable module comprising computer executable instructions representative of declarative code according to a declarative programming model implementing a type system supporting constraint-based refinement type statements that define a type by shaping the type relative to an unconstrained top level type representing all valid types and typecase statements in the refinement type statements that test an evaluation of an expression for membership of an indicated type, the at least one computer readable module including a plurality of programming constructs; and a declarative code interpretation module for interpreting and verifying validity of the plurality of constructs according to rules defined based on the type system, wherein the declarative code interpretation module, for each programming construct of the plurality of programming constructs and based on the rules, wherein the declarative code interpretation module performs a synthesis step on the programming construct that receives at least an expression as input and outputs a type for the expression or indicates an error; and wherein the declarative code interpretation module performs a type checking step that receives an expression and a type as input and outputs true if the type is valid for the expression or false if the type is invalid for the expression.
 12. The computing system of claim 11, wherein the synthesis step is performed to synthesize a type for the expression in a given context if it is possible to check the expression against the type in the given context.
 13. The computing system of claim 11, wherein the declarative code interpretation module performs the synthesis step according to a first judgment form based on a function having inputs of a context and an expression and that returns either a type or fails.
 14. The computing system of claim 11, wherein the declarative code interpretation module performs the type checking step according to a second judgment form based on a function having inputs of a context, an expression and a type and that returns either true or false.
 15. The computing system of claim 11, wherein the declarative code interpretation module verifies validity of the plurality of constructs based on a bidirectional type system according to the relations E├e→T and E├e←T and wherein the synthesis step attempts to assign a type T to an expression e in a context E.
 16. The computing system of claim 15, wherein the type checking step determines whether the expression e can be type checked at type T in context E.
 17. A method for executing declarative code by at least one processor of a computing device, including: for execution by the computing device, receiving a declarative program specified according to a typing system that supports, within a programming construct of the declarative program, typing by refinement and evaluation of type membership; and determining the validity of expressions represented in the declarative program according to a set of typing rules and judgments associated with the typing system wherein the determining includes synthesizing a type for an expression in a given context if the expression can be checked against the type in the given context.
 18. The method of claim 17, wherein the synthesizing includes receiving a context and an expression as input and returning the type if synthesizing is successful according to rules of the typing system or failing if synthesizing is not successful.
 19. The method of claim 17, further comprising: determining if the expression can be checked against the type in the given context according to rules of the typing system, and if so, synthesizing the type.
 20. The method of claim 17, wherein the determining if the expression can be checked includes receiving a context, an expression and a type as input and returning either true if the expression checks against the type or false if the expression does not check against the type. 